


Blood Price

by 9_miho



Series: Seven Made One [2]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Anthropomorphic Personifications, Crossovers & Fandom Fusions, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-13
Updated: 2014-11-13
Packaged: 2018-02-25 07:12:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 591
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2612939
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/9_miho/pseuds/9_miho
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“I am barren,” remarked the Iron Islands with no remorse or anger or sorrow. In her voice lay her single beauty, for it was a voice made for song and promises and rousing words. Her voice held the howling of the wind and the crashing of the waves, the cries of seabirds wheeling above and the eerie roaring emptiness beneath the sea.</p><p>“And House Greyjoy does not sow,” replied Asha Greyjoy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Blood Price

“I am barren,” remarked the Iron Islands with no remorse or anger or sorrow. In her voice lay her single beauty, for it was a voice made for song and promises and rousing words. Her voice held the howling of the wind and the crashing of the waves, the cries of seabirds wheeling above and the eerie roaring emptiness beneath the sea.

“And House Greyjoy does not sow,” replied Asha Greyjoy.

The Iron Islands laughed, the sound neither cackle nor giggle. It was a sound that caressed the ears, lingered and echoed in dark places. She pulled a pipe from the recesses of her salt-stiffened robe and her crabbed fingers packed its bowl with curled dried black leaves. The pipe did not look so much carved as harvested from the water-worn and crab gnawed bone of some ancient sea beast, disturbingly organic in its shape and form. She thrust the bowl of the pipe into the very coals of the little fire in the sea cave and blue flame erupted upwards, illuminating the walls in a violent swirl of fire.

Asha breathed in the smell of the smoke that followed upwards in curls of a pale hue that could not be called white. It hinted at distant fields of plants that grew in violent riots of color and hot, damp air that only rarely stirred. The Iron Islands pulled her pipe from the coals by its stem and inhaled the smoke, the tendrils visibly disappearing into her gaping nostrils. 

“You want my favor, girl?” she asked. One of her eyes glowed milky pale, a hag’s eye clouded with years. The other eye nestled in a broken spider web of yellow and red, rheumy and watery.

Asha smiled and she drew from her belt pouch something that glittered between her fingers. She upturned her hand and spread her fingers wide to display her palm’s contents.

The Iron Islands puffed on her pipe before pulling it from her mouth. Her other hand reached out to take the chain of many different links that rested in the girl’s palm like a many segmented snake.

“I paid the iron price for it,” Asha said, almost needlessly.

The Iron Islands laughed again. She held onto the chain’s end and let the rest fall from her hand, watching the many links clink and glitter against each other. “You too have no love for foolish old men in a soft tower,” she mused. “Men who fear fire, salt, iron.”

The Iron Islands sent the chain swinging. “You want my blessing?”

“I do not want your curse,” Asha stated.

The Iron Islands smiled. Firelight glinted off her rotting teeth. “You know that.” She paused. “They will not approve of a woman.”

“How do they stand you?”

The Iron Islands laughed raucously. “The greatest fear of a man is an old woman, girl.”

Asha smiled faintly, about to speak. But the old woman cut her off by spitting into the flames.

“You amuse me, girl,” said the Iron Islands. “And you are of good iron, yes. You are not yet too weathered. Well then…” She gathered the chain and tucked it into her robe. “We shall see, shall we?”

After the Kingsmoot, Asha saw the Iron Islands, unnoticed in the roiling, chaotic mess of men and greed and gold. The hag smiled and even in that dim light, even through the chaos, Asha could see the glint of gold and jewels surrounding the old woman’s neck. An enormous ruby glittered at the wrinkled throat like single, frozen drop of blood.

**Author's Note:**

> We can now imagine the Iron Islands being a creepy lecherous old lady to Euron Greyjoy and discomfiting him possibly just a little. At least, I'm imagining that.


End file.
